September 2, 2004—October 9, 2004 | Reception Thursday, Sept. 2nd, 6-8PM

James Harris Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of drawings by Shaun O’Dell. The artist creates intricate, highly coded drawings, the elements which recall the mythology of the American frontier and the spirit of conquest evoked by the nineteenth -century expansionist doctrine of Manifest Destiny. Such themes have been distilled into tightly honed iconography of crisply rendered glyph-like forms. The motifs in O’Dell’s vocabulary included log cabins, three masted ships, peregrine falcons and the head of Puritan pilgrims or Daniel Boone-esque frontiersmen. These elements tend to suggest either the migratory movements of people and creatures or the staked claims of early homesteaders. Above all, O’Dell explores mankind’s longstanding fascination with nature- the desire to claim and master it-and the deep-seated effects of such drives on the collective psyche

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